A Song of Ice and Pirates
by The Cheshire Cheese
Summary: (Fic for "The Ice Pirates," 1984) What led Jason to piracy? How did Wendon become a disembodied head? What's with Maida's…everything? The Space Herpe is about to learn the life stories of Jason's entire crew, as the Time Warp grants the tiny alien telepathy and other unimaginable powers.
1. Maida

**A/N: I've been a fan of this odd movie for well over a decade, but have only now decided to start writing fanfiction for it. There is no real plot to this "story;" it's more a collection of short stories, illustrating the backstories one fan has imagined for each member of Jason's crew.**

 **I don't own "The Ice Pirates."**

* * *

The Space Herpe, as these space-faring humanoids are calling her, is slithering along the smooth metal ceiling of their ship. Earlier she was sleeping peacefully, in a place that was warm and moist, and steadily increasing in heat, until it was the comfortable burning temperature of her home world. But her hibernation was interrupted when a massive blade penetrated her new cocoon, and when she poked her head out to see what was going in, she found herself surrounded by screaming, violent humans. She barely got out with her life.

Why is it is hard for these giant bipeds to let a harmless Herpe sleep in a dead bird that she found first? Humans can be so...inhumane.

She has found a safe spot on the ceiling of the ship's bridge, where she was able to returned to her nap for a while. But a change in her environment has woken her again; the ship is entering a new kind of space. And it is affecting the Herpe's mind. Outside the windows, the stars are stretching. Inside the ship, light seems to flash on and off like lightning.

Below her are three female humans. The youngest is sick, and she excuses herself from the cockpit. The oldest follows her. The last woman remains at the helm, piloting silently.

This woman is intriguing to watch. She sits still as a statue, fierce catlike eyes fixed on the stretching stats before her. Her fashion is like some cross between pirate and bohemian. Wrapped around her black bandanna is a metallic headband with a silver eagle crowning her forehead. The eagle is the symbol of Boudicca, the planet famous for its fierce and beautiful warrior women. Maida, a Boudiccan, had something eagle-related in almost every one of her colorful wardrobes.

 _How do I know that_? the Space Herpe wonders.

It's this anomaly, the Time Warp. It is excelling the growth of everyone and everything on-board. The high intelligence and telepathy that a Space Herpe would normally develop after a few years have rushed to this Herpe all at once in a matter of nanoseconds. She need only look and focus on the human below her, and she experiences her memories, her entire life.

Artimaida. That's what this human is called. But friend call her Maida.

* * *

"I don't want to go!" Maida pouted as her mother lifted her into her arms.

"Believe me Maida, you don't want to stay," her mother, Hippolyta, said, as they boarded the space ship.

The entire village of warrior men, women and children were boarding ships, the battle for their home world lost. Little Maida swung the miniature sword she'd used just hours before to help her mother defend their home, while her father fought at the front gates of the city. The blade was red from hacking at invader's ankles and adding extra holes in Templars already cut down by her mother, grandma and aunts. Both Maida and her mother sported war paint, her mother's blue tiger-like stripes across her face, Maida's a simple eagle claw drawn on her forehead. Everyone, adults and children, wore elegant metallic ornaments, and most spotted some colorful face paint for the battle. And all had swords.

Maida's adrenaline was still pumping and she wasn't ready for the battle to be over yet. But trying to fight against her mother's strength was useless.

The inside of the ship was dark and cramped, but at least Maida and her mother got to stand by a window. Six years old, Maida had never seen her home planet from space before. It was an iron gray, covered in dark lines and blotches were bodies of water once flowed. The planet was surrounded by large, unfamiliar ships.

A boy Maida's age, with a purple eagle feather drawn over one eye and crossing his nose cone, asked his big sister, "Why're the Tempurs doin' this?"

"Because we want to be free," the the heavily painted teenager replied solemnly. "The Templars won't stop destroying worlds until their rule is absolute."

Maida watched the Template ships begin firing blue beams of energy onto her home planet.

"Mama," Maida tugged her mother's gold chain mail tunic. "Where's Dad?"

Her mother just watched the view before them, with tearing eyes.

Maida's ashen fave returned to the window, just in time to see the blue laser beams engulf the planet, and then Boudicca shattered like glass, rock and ice and bits of its molten core falling in shards against the stars.

Maida's clan lived as bohemians for the rest of her childhood. Which didn't last as long as most. Her mother was killed when bandits invaded their tent on the moon Lexxa, stabbed in her bed. Maida was nine then. She spent the next three years dedicating herself to the study of swordplay, and the next two years hunting down the man who'd murdered her age fifteen, she finally found the bastard at a space port. She challenged him to a duel. She won. Though not as cleanly as she'd hoped. It was her first decapitation, and it took a few tries to get his head all the way off. She'd have to work on that particular move.

"Here," Maida drop-kicked the thug's noggin into his bemused cronies. A heavily scared alien caught it in crablike claws. "Play some kickball while you wait for your next transport," Maida said coldly.

The outlaws seemed more amused by what they'd just witnessed than anything else. One of them muttered, "I love kickball!" Maida found herself raising an eyebrow as he and the crab-alien began kicking and serving their comrade's head across the docking lot. The third pirate, a stout man with an elegant bandanna and one mechanical eye, approached Maida.

"You got spunk kid," he grunted. "And talent. Ever consider a career in piracy?"

Maida stared ahead at the macabre kickball game, then shrugged. "Better than sittin' around and getting fat. What the hell."

Maida thrived in her career as a pirate. She lost count of the number of ships she served on, and worlds she visited. But she has always collected souvenirs, and works them into her fashion. Fine fabrics from Mithra and Uther; a skirt of belts she'd bought from a street craftsman on the Pirate's Moon; a gold snake-shaped arm bracelet from the gift shop of a hotel-asteroid; a 23-karat gold tiara she'd won in a cereal box. A few centuries ago she'd be mistaken for a queen or princess; but now in the Dry Era, when wealth is measured in water, when gold and jewels are just cheap trinkets, she just looks like a woman with very erratic fashion. Not that Maida ever cared what anyone thought of her.

She first joined Jason's crew as his girlfriend. That didn't last long. But because there was never any denying that Jason is a great captain, Maida is an unbeatable pilot, and both are pretty handy with a sword, they've begrudgingly remained friends and loyal shipmates.

When Killjoy first stepped aboard a few weeks ago, Maida took the large hairy thief for another meat-head, another Jason. So naturally she didn't offer much response to his advances. But the more she learns about Killjoy the less of a meat-head he seems to be. He relied on his brains to get himself out of prison, off Mithra and into Jason's crew. He's funny. He introduced Maida to an ancient, ice-based sport called Hokey. His wit has helped the crew on many occasions. He protected Maida from the Space Herpe. (At this, the alien eavesdropping on Maida's thoughts scoffs sarcastically, a squelching sound that makes Maida glance up at the ceiling in confusion before returning attention to the helm.)

Maybe, Maida thinks, she should take the big lug up on that offer for a "long hot bath," when they reached the Seventh World.

Her feline eyes flick to a black dome on the mechanics near the helm. Something in it's reflection has caught her eye. Templars, trying to get the drop on her. _As if_. She locks the ship into autopilot. Then, pretending she's still driving, slowly reaches for her saber with one hand.

Now, the Herpe thinks, would be a good time to find a new hibernation spot and get the hell out of here.

Swords clash, curses are shouted, and the squelching scream of the Space Herpe goes unnoticed by the battling humans below, as she slides across the ceiling, out of the cockpit and into the hallway.

* * *

 **A/N: I can't say when this story will be updated, since it has no real plot, and it's probably not going to have a whole lot of followers eager for an update (with "The Ice Pirates" being such an obscure movie).**

 **On a somewhat unrelated note, here's some fun trivia for any Trekkies reading this: Mary Crosby (Princess Karina) played Natima Lang, Quark's Cardassian girlfriend in the "Deep Space Nine" episode "Profit and Loss." Patty Maloney, who played the dwarf woman in the "Voyager" episode "The Thaw," was also Dara the waitress in "the Ice Pirates."**


	2. Wendon

**A/N: I don't own "The Ice Pirates."**

* * *

The hallway is as bad as the bridge. Pirates battling Templars, robots fighting robots, swords clashing like nails on a chalkboard. One robot is sent slamming into the wall, causing the entire corridor to shake, and the Space Herpe falls off the ceiling, landing on the back of a bulky black robot.

Correction, she thinks, sniffing this new entity; it's not a robot. Actually, from the neck down it is. But perched on its shoulders it a very organic human head, with dark curly hair, a matching beard, and thick dorky glasses.

This is Lord Wendon, ruler of the Tri System. Once again the Space Herpe is basking in a human's memories and thoughts.

Wendon is a great-great-(insert a few lightyears worth of "greats")-nephew of the Supreme Commander of the Templars. Wendon has led a life of privilege, and one free of responsibility; the eighth child if fourteen, Wendon never had to worry about inheriting his father's throne on the moon of Dionysus. Wendon had a body back then, though he didn't take the best care of it. The spoiled prince spent his days eating, collecting exotic animals, and finding jobs to hire scantily clad women for. When he ran out of positions for maids, serving girls and dancers, he began putting out ads for any odd job he could come up with; food taster, massage artist, ocelot tamer, chip-dipper, channel flipper. The final straw for Wendon's father was when his son hired a tribe of half-naked warrior women from the ill-fated planet of Boudicca to guard his quarters.

"But Dad," Wendon whined, "you were just telling me the other day that I had to watch my neck for assassins! These are my body guards." He gestured to the muscular, freshly-oiled Amazons.

His father sputtered, face beet red with rage. " _Wendon_ ," battling to stay calm, his father managed to lower his screams to a strangled indoor voice. "You are politically neutral. You'll never be a serious consideration for the throne. You're probably not going to be anyone's romantic rival. _The only reason_ , and a very _probable_ reason, why someone might want to assassinate you, is to prevent you from inflicting further embarrassment on this family!"

Wendon blinked stupidly behind his thick glasses.

"Let me demonstrate," the white-haired aristocrat reached for the elegant sword on his belt.

"Donald," Wendon's mother begged tearfully. "Husband, please!"

Reluctantly, the duke sheathed his blade. Turning on his heel, the old aristocrat stormed down the palace hall, grumbling threateningly, " _Some time!_ "

The Duchess of Dionysus feared for her son. Wendon was childish, selfish, fat, lazy, horny, greedy, and sometimes sadistic, but he was her son. He was in his mid forties and still lived with his parents, but he was still her son. No matter how insufferable a son became, a mother's love was infallible. But the same, it seemed, was not true for a father's love. Or at least a father's patience. Lady Lilith believed her husband still loved his son... _very_ deep down... but even her beloved husband had his limits, and there was no denying that if anything would drive him to murder a family member, it was the man-child before her.

The duchess blinked sadly at her son, as he playfully flung up the skirt of a passing maid. If Wendon's father didn't kill him, it would only be because someone else killed him first. Someone was going to try to do Wendon in, it was inevitable. The best she could do as his mother would be to plan ahead.

Or...

Plan... a head!

* * *

Wendon rolled over in bed, between a maid and a glitter-covered dancing girl. A shadow was falling over him. Half-asleep, still partway in an erotic dream, the prince fancied it was another curvaceous female coming to join the threesome.

Wendon cooed lustfully, "Do I hear chain-mail? You know, just because you were hired as a guard, doesn't mean you can't help out with other chores." The dark figure raised a sword. "Ooo, kinky!"

Those two words were Wendon's last, before the blade came down onto his neck. The prince's eyes bulged, as he came completely awake. His two mistresses were screaming, and backing away. The maid lifted her apron to see the blood sprayed on it, then began pouting in French about how careful she'd always been to keep that thing perfectly white. The dancer meanwhile just stared at the carnage on the bed with a wrinkled nose.

Wendon's father heaved over his son's decapitated body, his rage slowly dwindling.

"Wendon?" the duchess's voice echoed from the hall.

"Mother!" Wendon croaked. "I'm still alive. Wait a minute... I'm...I'm alive!"

"What?" the Duke raised his blade again but his wife quickly stopped his arm.

Turning to her son's living head, the duchess explained, "I spoke to a Denebean scientist. The crab people have a highly advanced technology. That operation of yours last week was to wire your cranium for postmortem regeneration."

"You mean I wasn't really getting my wisdom teeth removed?" Weondon slurred with fatigue.

"You had your wisdom teeth removed when you were twenty-one Wendon," his mother sighed at her son's stupidity. "Now your father has satisfied his rage, and you're still alive. Get back to sleep. In the morning I'll take you shopping for a robotic body."

Wendon blinked slowly behind the glasses he'd worn to bed. "Just make sure it's a body that can digest sour cream chips and wine coolers."

* * *

It was soon arranged for Wendon to rule his own planet: a foggy wasteland in the Tri system, where the decapitated dunce would never annoy anyone again. The only other humans to join him were his Boudiccan body guards, who had no where else to go, their home planet destroyed by the Templars. All of the rest of his female servants found new jobs and remained a part of civilization. But Wendon made the most of his new life. He had a magnificent palace all to himself (albeit, one that looked suspiciously like an out-of-use opera house that had been lifted from its original foundation and transported to the barren planet). He had his choice of robotic bodies. He had exotic pets, exotic women, and most importantly, he had water.

And he lost it all, just earlier today, when those pesky pirates barged in looking for the princess's father. Wendon was seconds away from disposing of them, when the one pirate his Amazons had forgotten to capture swung down from a thick stage rope and kicked Wendon off his robotic body. Tp their credit, the pirates have held up their end of the bargain to take Wendon to the Seventh World with them. But despite Captain Jason's promise that there'd be "room for everyone," all of Wendon's pets and sexy guards have chosen to remain on the planet. It seems the Boudiccans are more drawn to the idea of having the palace and planet to themselves than joining the pirates on a possible suicide mission to find a planet no one's certain exists. Incidentally, there _is_ a Boudiccan in Jason's crew-his pilot Beta, or Data or whatever her name is-but she isn't from the same clan as Wendon's guards (her tribe wears more clothes) and she didn't respond well to Wendon's sexual advances, so he has backed off the helmswoman.

But Wendon, being Wendon, is determined to enjoy himself, no matter how dismal his situation becomes. He has been proudly showing off his bulky robotic body, provided by the very pirate who'd separated him from his old one. It isn't regal or elegant, but it definitely has a sense of power. Black, Wendon just decided, is definitely his color.

The Space Herpe has grown bored of Wendon's literal life story, having lost interest some paragraphs ago, and, snoring loudly, tumbles off his robotic back with a soft squelch. Wendon doesn't notice. All of the battling pirates, knights and robots continue fighting obliviously as the Herpe slithers around their feet, and through a partially-opened door...


	3. Karina

**AN: I goofed. Re-watching the movie, I learned that the Space Herpe should be dead before the Templars even begin sneaking up on Maida. I'll excuse that by suggesting that the order in which we saw these short clips in the Time Warp aren't necessarily the order in which they "happened."**

 **I don't own "The Ice Pirates."**

* * *

The Herpe is sliding absentmindedly through the ship, her mind on moisture and Boudiccan fashion and decapitation, barely noticing the frantic pirates and robots she is swerving to avoid. Just as she is wondering what being beheaded feels like, she gets the answer, as a heavy robotic foot comes down on her small, fragile body.

"You got it!" Captain Jason congratulates the robot, before going to knock on a nearby door.

Half-conscious, the Herpe listens as the pirate captain and the princess have a short discussion over the sound of some soft, strange wails. An indefinite around of time passes before the Herpe regains her strength. Space Herpes, like their worm cousins, can regenerate parts of their bodies if cut in half. The space Herpe breaks away from the robot's foot, discarding her squashed back-half, and slides into the room just before the princess shuts the door.

The two women who'd left the cockpit are in this room, and the Herpe finally discovers the origin of the odd wailing she heard earlier; in her arms, the princess is holding a newborn baby boy. Both woman fawn over the infant, and the Space Herpe suffers a sudden attack of envy; why is the birth of a human treated as a celebration, yet the hatching of a Herpe is regarded as a terrifying catastrophe? What hypocrites, these bipeds are.

Yet the Herpe is not the only one experiencing some negative feelings. Beneath her smile, Princess Karina is sad. Jason all but rejected their son. ("Sorry about that?" That's what he has to say about their child?) It's likely they will all die here in the Time Warp, her son's life will be depressingly short. The Templars will win, and their reign of terror will continue. Yet the thing Karina is most saddened by is something surprisingly trivial; her son will never see his home world. Even If by some miracle they survive the Templars and the Time Warp and make it to the Seventh World, he will never set food on the floating crystalline cities of Aragon, never look up or down into the gas giant's colorful clouds.

Aragon is a ringed planet with no solid ground. The shinning cities of Aragon sit on chunks of red rock hundreds of miles across, floating on the rolling clouds, whose colors are an ever changing spectrum that reflect off of Aragon's crystalline towers. Millions of miles below there used to be a boiling ocean- as all gas giants once had-where many a legend and fairy tale once claimed was home to a variety of monsters; but those oceans were all evaporated by the weapons used in the Great Interplanetary Wars.

* * *

"I don't understand," eleven-year-old Karina asked her nanny and governess, "Does being royalty make us Templars? Or are Templars just people from Mithra?"

"Neither," Nanny replied over her history book. "The Templars are a political party, originating on Mithra. Aragon is a subject planet of the Templar Empire. The counts, dukes and barons of Aragon govern this planet under the rule of the Templars."

Karina's father, Count Vasco of Aragon, had always displayed dual emotions regarding the Templars. At parties and political meetings he acted like he was one of them; at home in private, he grumbled, spat and sometimes swore when speaking of Mithra and the Templars.

Karina left her seat on the balcony at the top of the tower, where she and Nanny were conducting her studies, and leaned over the wall to view the city. The white buildings were tinted pink and violet from the rolling afternoon clouds.

"Karina, be careful!" Nanny gasped.

"I'm not gonna try climbing on anything," Karina sighed irritably.

Nanny gave her a hard stare.

Six years earlier, when Karina was five, her family was visiting the edge of the city. Her toddler brother somehow managed to climb up onto a statue that sat against the wall that encompassed the kingdom, on it's floating boulder. Her mother scrambled up to try and save him. All these years later, Karina still remembers the feint distant figures of her mother and brother, tumbling down through the endless clouds.

Nanny, who'd helped raise Karina's mother, took over as Karina's maternal figure. Nanny, who'd been a royal spy in her youth, taught Karina everything about elegance, watching for danger, and using a gun.

More than ever before, Karina, her father, and Nanny became firm believers in preventing deaths that were...preventable. The gravity of the millions dying of thirst throughout the galaxy when there should be enough water to go around, if only properly, became the hottest topic for the count. Count Vasco had already been actively working for better treatment of the galactic peasantry, but after losing his wife and son he became infinitely more serious about it. To the point of speaking out against the Templars, a dangerous move.

The Count never openly defied the Templars. His resistance became a passive aggressive dance, as he passed policies on Aragon that made ice-trafficking easier, turned a blind eye to the anti-Templar rebel movements based near his planet, and aided scientists searching for new water sources. But it couldn't go on forever. When it reached the point that her father could no longer hide his activities from the Supreme Commander, Vasco decided now was as good a time as any to set out on his long-planned expedition to the legendary Seventh World.

"You're to run Aragon in my absence," her father instructed. "Trust no one but Nanny."

Fighting back tears, the princess asked, "What if something happens to you?"

"I'll keep in touch. I'll provide an entire crew manifest for you, so you have some emergency contacts."

He was gone for months. Almost a year after his departure, the Templars declared Count Vasco officially lost, and scheduled a memorial party on Mithra, requesting Karina's presence as the Guest of Honor.

"Guest of Honor," Karina snorted, as Nanny curled her hair in front of the mirror. "How stupid do the Templars think Aragons are? 'Lost in the Time Warp,' I don't believe it for a second."

"Nor should you," Nanny said softly, as she applied a gold leafy pin to Karina's hair. "Out spies on the pirate's moon say they've heard rumors about a ship of Aragon design floating dead in space, it's crew massacred."

Karina looked at her nanny sharply.

"But there's more." Nanny said quickly. "The rumors say not all bodies were accounted for. Ship logs indicated that the Count had departed the ship. Rumors say he's been changing ships to throw off the Templars."

Karina sighed. "So all we have to do is find someone who know what ship he jumped to next."

"There's one man," Nanny said. "A pirate who appeared on Sagora not too long ago. He had some kind of run-in with Count Vasco. Lanky Nibs."

"Then we just need to get ahold of some pirates." Karina put a finger to her lips thoughtfully. "Mithra has a large slave market. Most of those slaves are former criminals...I think I'm onto something Nanny."

"Well we don't have much time to throw a plan together," Nanny said. "You transport to Mithra leaves in an hour."

Karina grimaced, as the threw in a glittering shawl. "Guess we'll have to improvise."

* * *

Fortune was in Karina and Nanny's favor, as the pirates they needed flew right into their laps, and got themselves captured. Everything from there had moved a triple-warp-speed. Now Karina's father was just one Time Warp away, and she had a new grandson and son-in-law to introduce him to, but odds were they wouldn't survive long enough for the reunion. And Jason didn't even seem interested in his son, or Karina for they matter.

He might change his mind, she thought... if he wasn't killed fighting off the Templars.

"Have you thought of a name?" Nanny asked, peering over her shoulder at the child.

Karina shrugged. "I can't think of one."

"What about naming him after his grandfather?"

"My father's still alive, Nanny," Karina reminded her. "In Aragon tradition you don't name a child after someone who's still alive."

"Then naming him after his father is out of the question," Nanny mused. "Unless you expect him to get killed in this battle."

After a pause, Karina decided, "Jason's a good name."

The Space Herpe couldn't argue with that.


End file.
